SSE Custom NPCs follow sandbox schedule, but do not sandbox

[robbobert]

Heya!

 

So I've been working on adding my custom voiced khajiit followers as marriage options, and the mod is more or less done. I've added onto the default RelationshipMarriage quests, so I'm using default scripts, aliases, and AI packages. Marriage works fine, moving among all 9 default houses is fine, dialogue options are fine. However, I've experienced an issue with their sandboxing in their spousehouse that I can't figure out:

 

 

Only seems to affect Hearthfire houses. After arriving at the house, they do not sandbox around inside, instead standing in place until the next change in their schedule occurs.

 

-If they're heading outside next, they do so properly.

-If they're heading to the kitchen, they do so properly (and sandbox properly for this package, using the nearby warmhands idlemarker).

-If they're heading to bed, they do so properly, and sleep on-schedule (although, for some reason when they wake up, their eyes stay closed until I speak to them).

-Often times when I wait/sleep in the house Location, the spouse will disappear, and I have to Wait inside and/or outside for them to reappear.

-Sometimes when coming back in from outside, the spouse will disappear instead of appearing inside, again requiring Waiting.

 

 

The fact that they follow their schedule properly is what has me so confused, because it means the house sandboxing alias is being filled properly. To me it just seems like the "Sandbox Inside" package at the bottom of their sandboxing stack (a SandboxMultiLocation package) is not functioning properly for some reason.

 

FWIW, I've noticed the sandboxing seems *less* broken the farther along the house is in development. They still don't actually sandbox around when on the Inside package, but they don't outright disappear as much.

 

TL;DR: In Hearthfire homes, spouses follow their AI schedule, but do not sandbox when inside the house.

 

Anyone run into anything like this before? It's the last thing to fix before publishing this monster, but I just can't figure it out. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

[robbobert]

So, further investigation shows that when I Wait inside the house, the spouse repositions himself as normally should happen, but for some reason he is repositioning to parts of the house that are not there yet. Example: in the "base" version of the house with just the small room, waiting causes him to reposition to spots all throughout the main hall, and since the main hall is not there, he has effectively disappeared.

 

I guess this could also be tied to the lack of sandboxing? Say, if he is trying to sandbox to a node that isn't active yet, so instead, he just stand in place?

[robbobert]

So, after days of banging my ahead against this particular wall, I've more or less gotten things into working order. Spouse is sandboxing around properly about 95% of the time. I'll leave my solution for anyone who may run across this in the future, or for anyone with suggestions:

 

 

I ended up making my own sandboxing package stacks, mimicking the default stacks and conditioning them only to be active at the proper BYOH house locations. I attached the package stack to an alias on a dummy quest that is started by a custom script called when your spouse says their line after you first choose your house (in the RelationshipMarriageFIN quest).

 

For the dummy quest alias, I ended up using an external alias reference tied to the LoveInterest alias on the Wedding quest. That way, the default House aliases and their packages in RelationshipMarriageFIN are left alone, as are the default scripts.

 

 

Things are still a little janky -- at times my spouse likes to stand around and do a lot of nothing, particularly when he's outside -- but it's a lot less nothing than before, and no more teleporting outside the house interior's bounds when waiting/sleeping as far as I've seen.

 

Hope this helps someone.